It is hoped that the day’s events will help to lure cruise operators and tourists back to the countryCredit:
2016 Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency

The ship was welcomed by traditional dancers, while a military band played drums and trumpets to mark the occasion. As passengers disembarked, they were garlanded with flower necklaces by local shopkeepers and tour guides.

Security was high, but so were spirits. “It’s huge for me to be reopening my shop and it warms my heart to see life return to the village,” 39-year-old Haifa Dargouth told news agency AFP.

“This atmosphere is doing wonders for my morale,” said Salah Issa, a camel owner in his 40s who has worked in tourism since he was 12 years old. “I was rotting away in unemployment... My camels were going hungry.”

The cruise passengers were welcomed by local shopkeepers and camelsCredit:
getty

Gabriella, a tourist from Berlin, said she was undeterred by the FCO’s advice to avoid all but essential travel to the city. “I’m not scared at all,” she told reporters as she headed to Tunis medina, a Unesco-listed World Heritage Site.

It is hoped that the day’s events will help to lure cruise operators and tourists back to the country, whose tourism industry has been decimated by terrorist attacks and the Arab Spring revolt.

The cruise is the first to dock in Tunis since the 2015 terror attacksCredit:
2016 Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency

But although the ship was a welcome arrival, officials warned that local tourism is far from recovered. “The arrival of the liner Europa does not in itself signal the resumption of cruise liner activities in Tunisia,” said Malek Ghanemi, head of La Goulette’s cruise liner terminal. “But it’s very important because it sends out a positive and reassuring message.”

A Switzerland-based company is also planning a stop in Tunisia in January, Tourism Minister Selma Rekik Elloumi told AFP.

For businessman Maher Lassoued, this week’s cruise ship visit was a sign of hope: “The Bardo attack completely destroyed me,” said the 49-year-old, who returned to Tunisia to do business after the 2011 Arab Spring uprising. “For the first time in my life, I was unemployed for more than a year and unable to pay what I owed. I’m breathing with both lungs again.”

After the ousting of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, Tunisia was on its way to becoming a major tourism destination following years of dictatorship rule. But in March 2015, ISIL terrorist gunmen killed 21 people at the Bardo Museum in Tunis. Most of the victims were European tourists, visiting the city on cruise ships operated by Costa and MSC – and the operators subsequently announced they would remove Tunis from all future itineraries.

At the time, Telegraph Travel's cruise expert Jane Archer warned of the effect this would have on the local economy: “It is easy for the cruise lines to switch to other interesting destinations, but it is very sad for the locals because cruise ships only started going back there relatively recently following the Arab Spring.

“It will take a long time for the country to recover from a tragedy like this and convince people it is safe.”

The tourists boarded a bus, destined for the city's medinaCredit:
getty

Three months later, 38 people were killed in a mass shooting attack on a beach at a resort near Sousse, on the north-east coast. Tunisia was immediately dropped from all cruise operator itineraries, and the FCO continues to advise against all but essential travel to most of the country.